Disk 1 Dynamic Foreign WinXP Pro (to) WinXP Home Problem...

[VipeNess]

I'm having an issue here with someone that I'm trying to help out. My friends had bought a computer that had Windows XP Professional on it, and they had 2 harddrives.., now those (2) hard drives; 1 was the operating system, and the other drive was backup drive that they stored their documents and pictures from their digital camera.

So they told me they were having some computer issues, with popups; etc.. so I checked it out, and their OS was not legit at all.. So, being that they aren't a business, I offered to get them a new Windows XP Home from the store being that they didn't want to go to Vista at all, because their comptuer couldn't be upgraded to it, since hardware wise wouldn't run it well.. So I went to the local Best Buy and picked up a Windows XP Home for their computer. I made sure they didn't have anything left and moved all their pictures, funny videos etc that people use to send to their email's and backed them up on the harddrive.

This is the main window of what the Disk Management looks like...

This is what happens when you RIGHT CLICK on the disk...

Now, I have completely redid the computer, being a legit working SP2 Windows XP Home edition for them, with all the latest and greatest updates. Now I went into " Administrator Applications - Computer Management - Disk Management and the drive shows up on the bottom, but has a YELLOW Bang. It states it is Disk 1 Dynamic Foreign. So I read online to right click -> and to restore it so the data can be read off it. Now when I right click, it does not have that option at all to do that but to Convert to Basic Disk, but which they will lose all their data completely.

Now, here is the funny part. I had (have) Windows XP Professional on my computer before I upgraded to Windows VISTA Home Premuim. After I had upgraded to Home Premuim, I had the same issue where my backup drive was doing the same thing, and I called Microsoft Support and they couldn't help me at all with this issue at all. So, being that I was on the BETA 2 program for VISTA, I had the Vista Ultimate package, on my other computer, which is why I had bought VISTA in the first place, so, I took my harddrive that I could not read in Home Premuim, put it in the other computer, and IT WORKED perfectly.

For some reason, I've found that drives in other operating systems are having issues being able to read.. example below

Windows XP Professional - Windows VISTA Home Premuim -> Drives created and managed from XP Pro, once upgraded to Home Premuim will not show up, unless you have Ultimate edition on your system.

- Now I thought that was just some type of Vista thing, until I ran across it on this computer, being they had someone sell them the computer with Windows XP Professional on it, then I went out and got them a legit XP Home edition and the harddrive is doing the same thing.

I'm looking to seek advice to get this drive to work on their computer. I don't want to tell them they need 179+ more dollars to get their drive to work, or have to take the drive out and then put it in mine, then buy them an external usb/firewire drive and copy everything over, then, put the harddrive back in their computer, format it, then copy the material from the external to the newly formated drive. There has to be some type of way that this can be fixed easily... please if anyone can get this to work, please let me know in this thread. Thanks!

[[deXter]]

I'm looking to seek advice to get this drive to work on their computer. I don't want to tell them they need 179+ more dollars to get their drive to work, or have to take the drive out and then put it in mine, then buy them an external usb/firewire drive and copy everything over, then, put the harddrive back in their computer, format it, then copy the material from the external to the newly formated drive. There has to be some type of way that this can be fixed easily... please if anyone can get this to work, please let me know in this thread. Thanks!

Why do you have to do all that? Just copy the files to your drive, format their drive and create normal partitions, and copy their data back.

[MazX_Napalm]

Some things you should consider.

Reactivate a missing or offline dynamic disk

NOTE: Dynamic disks are not supported on portable computers or on Windows XP Home Edition-based computers.

Source: Basic Storage Versus Dynamic Storage in Windows XP

Important Dynamic discs are only supported for Windows Vista Business and Windows Vista Enterprise and Ultimate, not supported for Windows Vista Home Basic and Windows Vista Home Premium.

Source: The option to upgrade a basic disk to a dynamic disk is not available on a portable computer

[robsterrobster]

I have this exact problem, I swapped XP Pro from one machine to XP Home (I have both Pro and Home and re-formated both machines, took one to the office (the pro machine) and kept the other at home (funnily enough, the home machine :)).

The problem I have is the same, but I can't connect the drive to another machine, but I need to re-activate it / get it working.

How can I do this without formating it as windows wants me to when I click on "convert to basic disc"?

Any help really appreciated, as I'm sure the first poster would agree :)

Rob

[robsterrobster]

http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk

This program fixed it for me, I changed it to a Primary disc type, then when windows booted it saw it again, then I simply activated the disc with the system/admin tools (disc management tool). Hope that helps someone, including the original poster. There is NO need to lose your data or anything silly like that.

Rob

[cmixup]

I just registered on this forum to be able to thank robsterrobster for his tip on this problem. I had the same problem as described by several others when upgrading my WinXP to Vista Home Premium: my Dynamic Disk was Offline. I downloaded TestDisk, changed to Primary (Go into Menu: "Analyse Disk" + Dont forget to"Write on disk" on the way out from the Menu) and after a reboot the Disk was already visible, accessible and all my old stuff was still there!

J.

[cheetah97]

I just used the testdisk app and it worked perfectly!! thank you to everyone!!

[hernandy]

THANKS to ALL, u guys save my life :)

[mariaivy]

just like cmixup, i registered to say thank you to Robsterr, I sent a private email to tell you how grateful that I have found the solution through you after three days of searching in Google.

Thank you so, so much! Even if the solution was posted in 2007, i am grateful. You were still able to help me

two years after.

Ivy :D :D

[dhruv990]

http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk

This program fixed it for me, I changed it to a Primary disc type, then when windows booted it saw it again, then I simply activated the disc with the system/admin tools (disc management tool). Hope that helps someone, including the original poster. There is NO need to lose your data or anything silly like that.

Rob

If you were a girl I would have proposed you right now just for providing me with that solution.

I was so tense that I had lost all my data (which was related with my clients) as a result I was looking at around a loss of 10,000$. Thanx to your solution I managed to recover every last bit of data that I had backed up.

THANK YOU SO MUCH.

I'm literally crying tears of joy at this point of time.

Seriously anything I say to you is meak as compared to the help you've given me.

Thanx again and may god bless you.